“And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath. And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me? Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?
1 Samuel 21:10-15; 22:1
David feigned madness before King Achish. His display looked stupid to Achish who could have dealt with him (based on the way his servants reported David) but that was the strategy God gave him as a way of escape at that point in time.
Who could have thought that behaving like a mad, foolish man with drooling saliva was what will grant David an escape even though he had just collected the spear of Goliath from the priest. One would have expected David to begin to fight wars against Achish right there and then with the heavy spear. But NO! That wasn’t the strategy at that time! He rather started a disgusting and irritating behavior in order to escape the possibility of being arrested or killed by King Achish.
He was sensitive to divine wisdom! He refused to fight King Achish but rather displayed some level of being a mad man. His escape at that time was not going to be by fight else he probably might have been captured!
This was the same David that confronted Goliath with ‘ordinary stones’ in the name of the Lord. He could have fought the men of Gath with the sword of Goliath.
In life, we all need different strategies or approaches ( by the leading of the Holy Spirit) to achieving certain feats!
The method employed yesterday may not work for today’s challenges. We need divine wisdom to know what to do and how to do it per time.
This shows David’s dependence on God and equally, our need for the wisdom of God in life’s situations and decisions.
We all need the wisdom of God to confront life’s situations as no single method can be claimed as a magic formula.
The time we need to ‘strike’ the rock may be different from the time we need to ‘speak’ to the rock as was expected of Moses. Whichever way, we need that sensitivity to the leading of the Lord in every of life’s situations.
The prayerful lyrics of a hymn readily bubbles in my heart as I think of how so much we need divine wisdom to handle issues of life:
…..Oh deeper yet I pray…🎼
And higher every day
And wiser blessed Lord
In the precious Holy Word.🎼
May you be endowed with divine wisdom at every critical point of decision in life. Amen!
©Funmi Adebayo